Half a minute later the rest of the platoon surfed in on the four-foot waves and lay on the beach. Kat knew exactly what to do. She had rehearsed this with Jaybird a dozen times on dry land. When she saw the hand raised, she moved with the others. They had cut their buddy cords. She swam furiously, surfed down the last breaker, and was the second man in the platoon to go to ground on the wet sand.
On another signal from Murdock, the SEALs crawled forward, pulled their weapons off their backs, emptied out the water, and charged a round into the chambers. Kat was in sync with the rest of the platoon.
The two snipers leaped up, charged across the dry sand to a small dune, and went prone behind it, simulating fire to the front. On signal the first squad charged the dune and spread out around it, facing the shore. Kat bellied down in the sand, her MP5 up and ready to fire. She lay six feet from Ron Holt, where she had been assigned.
Second squad raced out of the wet sand, came near the dry dune, and spread out facing the water as a rear guard. Murdock gave another hand signal and Miguel Fernandez leaped up, raced up beside the snipers, set up his machine gun, and chambered the first round. He held up his hand to show that he was ready.
Murdock gave him a signal and he simulated firing.
The next move came as Murdock leaped up. The rest of first squad lifted as a unit with him, and charged past the machine gunner, through the sand toward the highway fifty yards inland. At the edge of the highway, Murdock went prone, and the squad followed.
A moment later the machine gunner Fernandez and second squad charged up beside them.
Murdock stood. "Gather around," he barked, and the SEALs pulled up nearby and sat.
"Not bad. A little ragged getting the second squad to shore. Get your buddy lines cut quicker so you're ready. Kat, any problems?"
"No. That Drager is a sweetheart. I want to take one home with me."
"You can. They price out a little over three thousand dollars."
"On the other hand," Kat said, and the SEALs laughed.
"Kat, you kept up with us, you stayed in your position, you took to the sand in good form, and you charged across it like a veteran. How does it feel to swim and run with forty pounds of gear?"
"Better than if I had sixty."
The SEALs hooted and jeered at Murdock.
Murdock grinned. In a week this small lady had won the hearts of every man in the platoon. Now all he had to be sure of was that she could carry her load, keep herself alive, and didn't cause any of his men to get wasted. Oh, yeah, and he had to be careful that none of his SEALs put himself in danger trying to help out Kat.
"Let's get back to the OP shack. I want you to change into dry cammies. We're going for a ride in forty-five, so hustle."
"Where we riding to, L-T?" Jaybird asked.
"Didn't tell you, chief? We're headed for Niland and a little bit of live firing practice, in formation. Kat, you can change in my office. Let's move it. Jaybird, a column of ducks and double time."
The squads formed in a column of twos automatically, and Murdock and Jaybird led them the two miles down the wet sand to the SEAL Grinder. Kat ran beside Holt. She had no trouble keeping up. Holt looked over at her and gave her a thumbs-up.
Kat Garnet, physics professor, nuclear weapons breakdown expert, and temporary SEAL, grinned.
Four hours later, the Third Platoon had saddled up with full combat gear, personal weapons, and regular ammo load, and headed across country from their Navy bus at the edge of the Navy's Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range in the California desert.
Murdock had given them the orders before they started out from the bus. "Our mission today is to take Hill 284. It's about five miles out to the left. First we find it, then we assault it, and we hope we don't kill any of our own men — or women. This is a live-fire drill."
He turned to Kat.
"Lieutenant Garnet, do you read me?"
"Yes. We have live rounds. We follow standard procedures, and fire in our designated areas, and do not endanger any friendlies."
"Right, remember that."
They hiked out in combat style. Lampedusa led off as scout, working a hundred yards ahead of the rest. They had two diamond formations side by side. Murdock led the point on first squad, followed closely by Ron Holt with the radio, and then Kat. She carried her MP5, and six extra magazines.
From time to time, Kat stared down at the safety on the weapon. It was on. She didn't want to stumble and fire off a half dozen rounds. When the order to fire came, she would check to be sure her field of fire was clear of any friendly force, then fire in the indicated direction on single-shot or three-round burst. Yes. Now all she had to do was do it right. This was her first live-fire training exercise with the rest of the platoon.
They were halfway out to the mountain in the hot afternoon sunshine of October, when Holt touched his mike button once, creating a one-shot tsk on the radio. Sixteen SEALs hit the dirt, and lay without moving. Kat tried to look ahead. All she could see was Ron Holt's boots. She looked over at Magic Brown. She'd watch him.
Magic stood. Kat stood and saw the rest of the platoon on its feet and moving forward slowly toward where the scout remained on his stomach looking forward to the right.
The radio receiver in her ear came on. It was Murdock. "We have some activity to the right front. First squad on the double, and form a line of skirmishers in the dirt on the scout. Move!"
Kat held her MP5 in front of her and charged forward. The men raced ahead of her, but she caught them by the time they came to the scout, and all flopped on the ground with weapons pointing outward in a menacing line.
Kat knew there would be no open-fire command. In the SEALS, when the platoon leader began firing, that was the signal for the rest of them to fire.
She heard the stutter of Murdock's MP5 and leveled her own weapon, pushed off the safety to three-round burst, and fired six rounds. The weapon sounded strange. She fired six more rounds. The earpiece gave three tsks and the squad ceased fire.
"Second squad form on our left flank," the radio speaker ordered. "Open fire when in place."
Kat watched to her left and saw the second squad run into position, and the weapons chattered. She'd never heard so many guns firing at the same time in her life.
"Cease fire, reform in diamonds," the radio whispered.
As Kat moved back into formation behind Holt, Murdock fell into step behind her.
"You moved well, stayed in position. Always remember before you fire to check for friendly forces in front of you. Somebody might get out of line, or get held up, even wounded. Check that field of fire first. It has to be an automatic every time you're in combat."
Kat nodded, and he slapped her on the shoulder, and went back to lead the squad on toward the hill.
Twice More in the next mile they had fire missions. On the last one the first squad went into line and second squad formed up on their left flank at a 45-degree angle.
Murdock fired, and the whole platoon fired, then stopped at the cease-fire three tsks on the earpieces.
"Kat," the ear-piece spoke. "Take a look at the squad on the left, then lay down covering fire twenty yards in front of them. Now."
Kat lifted her MP-5, pushed it to three-round bursts, and scattered a dozen shots in front of the Second Squad.
"Cease fire, cease fire," the excited voice came over the radio. "Man down, we've got a man down, Second Squad. Get Doc over here fast."
Kat's eyes went wide. She pushed the safety on her submachine gun. She had been the only one firing. Had she shot one of the platoon?
Murdock appeared at her elbow. "Kat, on me. Follow me." The two ran over the desert rocks, and past straggling sage and some dwarf plants to where the second squad had gathered around a man on the ground.
They moved up, and the men gave way. Les Quinley, Torpedoman's Mate Third Class, lay on the rocky ground on his back. His eyes were closed, his chest a mass of red blood. Doc Ellsworth worked on him quickly, taking his vitals, trying
to stop the blood flow from his chest. Doc turned, and looked at Murdock. "Gonna need some help. Better have Holt ring up a chopper to get out here from North Island or Pendleton."
"How bad is he, Doc?" Murdock asked.
"Can't tell. Must have taken two right in the chest." Kat dropped to her knees and stared at Quinley. She picked up the SEAL's hand and then let it down. It was limp.
"Murdock, I didn't mean to-"
He cut her off. "Holt, get over here on the double and warm up the SATCOM."
"Ed, was Quinley too far off line down there on the end?"
"No. He was within ten yards of the next man, Should have been safe."
"Kat, didn't I tell you to give support fire, in front of Second Squad?"
"Yes, sir, you did. I thought-"
"No excuse!" Murdock thundered. "The only answer to a fuckup like this is to say, no excuse."
Kat lowered her head to her hands and blinked. She would not cry. There might not be any "crying in baseball" as the movie said. There sure as hell wasn't any crying in the SEALS.
Somebody snickered.
Kat looked up.
A belly laugh launched from somewhere in the Second Squad.
Kat stared around, wiping just-formed tears from her eyes. She looked down at Quinley, who now had one eye open.
Murdock's face was still grim. "Lieutenant, are you absolutely sure that you fired in front of Second Squad?"
She stared back at him. "Absolutely certain, Lieutenant.
Fucking absolutely certain."
"Atta girl," somebody shouted from the Second Squad.
"Would you hurry this up?" Quinley brayed from his apparent deathbed. "I've got a shithouse-sized fucking rock in the middle of my back."
Kat punched Quinley in the belly and he rolled over and sat up. The blood pack fell off his cammies and the whole platoon roared with laughter. "You fuckers, you set me up," Kat screeched.
Murdock squatted beside her. "We had you, though, didn't we? Kat, I want you to check your magazine."
She frowned, swung her MP-5 up, and pushed the mag release. She caught the magazine in her hand, and looked at the rounds still in it.
"You really set me up. They're blanks. I've been firing blanks all afternoon." She turned toward Murdock, the weapon dropped to her knees. She balled her fists and bellowed in rage.
"You whore-mongering, sonsabitching, mother-fucking, gonad-eating, umbuquatious assholes. You won't get me again. As I remember, Murdock, sir, you volunteered to load my magazines for me." Then she grinned. "I'm nominating the rest of you fifteen shit-kickers for a fucking Academy Award for best actors."
"Welcome to the SEALS, Lieutenant Garnet," Jaybird said. "It's good to have you aboard."
Everyone cheered. Quinley cleaned up the blood pouch Doc had begged from the base infirmary, and they got ready to march.
"Two more miles," Murdock said. "Let's get back in our diamond formation and haul ass."
Going up the last two hundred yards to the top of the small rise, they laid down assault fire, then secured the peak and spread out in a protective formation on the reverse slope. Twice they fired down the slope. Kat had stowed magazines of blanks, borrowed hot rounds from some of the other MP-5 shooters, and joined in the exercise, glad to have live rounds again.
DeWitt remembered that Kat hadn't fired any of the 40mm grenades from the Colt M-4A1. Murdock approved, and she fired six HE rounds and then two WP. The white phosphorous started a small fire that Jaybird and four men attacked with entrenching tools, and had out before it had burned ten feet. The desert land offered little fuel, but at times annual grass could be a problem.
Murdock checked his watch 1725. He called the troops together. "Anybody want to camp out tonight, and have a twenty-mile hike tomorrow morning?"
He heard a few boos.
"Good. It's now 1725. We're five klicks from the bus. If we get back there by 1800, we turn turtle, and drive back to Coronado. That's six minutes to the mile. Kat will lead out; she knows this pace. Let's do it."
They headed downhill. A six-minutes-to-the-mile pace is just a little slower than the professional marathoners go. With full combat gear it was a struggle and a strain. Kat held it for two miles, then checked the troops. They were strung out for a quarter of a mile.
Murdock called a halt while the stragglers caught up. When all were assembled, he relented.
"Sorry some of you ladies couldn't keep up with our newest recruit SEAL. I see more hikes coming up. Okay, you've had a good drill, we'll walk the rest of the way, and still have that bus ride. Now, are we happy?"
"We're happy, sir!" the SEALs bellowed in unison.
"I asked if we're happy?"
This time the bellow came twice as loud followed by raucous cheers and shouts.
Murdock gave them the old Infantry signal of forward with his hand high over his head and then brought down to the front.
The Navy bus pulled up in front of the SEAL quarterdeck just after 2100. Murdock motioned to Kat as she stepped off the bus. "Lieutenant, there are some matters we need to discuss. Dinner tonight at the officers club at the Amphib Base. I'll meet you there in thirty minutes."
"Cammies? That's all I have."
"I think I can get you past the cop at the door."
An hour later they sat at a back table next to the wall and worked on medium-rare steaks. Murdock took the lead before dessert came.
"Kat, I owe you an explanation." He held up his hand when she started to protest. She relaxed.
"Our little stunt today is standard for most of the new men we get in our platoon. A kind Of wringing out and checking out. There's one thing we can't know when we train a man. How is he going to react in actual combat when the bad guys are shooting back trying to kill his ass dead.
"It's the one intangible that every combat commander worries over until all of his men are blooded. This problem was magnified about tenfold when you were assigned here. You're a civilian, you had never fired a gun before, and you were a woman."
"So?" She watched him with a faint smile.
"So far you've stood up to our training and physical regimen better than I expected. Far better, in fact. You didn't panic when you thought you might have killed one of your platoon. You took the guff and came up smiling. All A-plus in my book."
"So far, so good, Lieutenant. You didn't buy me dinner, you did say you were buying; I don't have any money with me."
He nodded.
"Good. We're not here to take a look at my report card. What else is in your craw?"
"Don Stroh, but he's another problem. I don't know if you researched us before you arrived?"
"I did. The U.S. Navy SEALs were established by presidential order in 1962 by John Kennedy. SEAL stands for SEa, Air, and Land. Most say that the SEAL teams are the foremost elite special operations forces in the world today. SEAL teams One and Two served in Vietnam. At that time they were fourteen-man platoons.
"By 1990 there were seven SEAL teams to meet the expanding use of special operations and for covert work. They put teams One, Three, Five, and Seven here in Coronado at the Naval Special Warfare Group One. The rest of them, Teams Two, Four, and Eight, were headquartered at Little Creek, Virginia, in the command of the NAVSPECWARGRU-Two. The teams here were to be used in the Pacific area; the east coast teams would handle jobs in the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas."
Murdock grinned as she clicked off the history of his outfit. "You have done some homework."
"SEALs have the toughest, roughest, baddest training of any elite forces in the world, including the British SAS. It lasts six months and officers go through the same training as the other Bud guys, with one added duty. Officers must score at least ten percent higher on all tests than the enlisted men do.
"This creates a strange and magnificent bonding between SEAL officers and men. SEALs know their officers have done the BUDs course — lifted the log, manned the IBS, run the obstacle course — and done it in the ocean on a ten-mile swim comba
t ready.
"It's a spirit and motivation that few units have. These men depend on each other on every mission for their very lives. I've seen more dedication and devotion and dependent-bonding here in the past week than ever before in my life."
She stopped and took a bite of the desert. She wasn't sure what it was, or how it tasted. She watched his eyes, They seemed to light up for a minute, then a grin spread over his handsome face and she smiled. "Coach, how did I do?"
"Glad we could have this little talk."
They both burst out laughing. Neither of them said a word for a while. They concentrated on the desert. When it was gone and the final sips of wine vanished from their glasses, he picked up her hand and held it on the table.
"Katherine, you did fine, to answer your question. One thing I noticed about you the first day you reported. We told you something once and you learned it and remembered it. We never had to repeat anything to you. It's an exceptional ability. Now for the big question of the day Has DeWitt's lady invited you over for dinner yet?"
"No. Ed mentioned it once, but said the time wasn't quite right yet."
"I'll see if I can get that worked out tomorrow. We got word today from Don Stroh that our men, Guns Franklin and Joe Douglas, are now somewhere near the nuclear facility north of the town of Chah Bahar in Iran. If they find that place in a rush, we won't have our month of training. I'm telling Don that as of tomorrow, we're combat ready. We can fly out anytime our boys find the target."
"We'll probably drop in by parachute?"
"Fifty miles inland is a long walk. We'll probably go in by air for a low-level drop. Static line on the chute from a thousand to twelve hundred feet off the deck. Quick down and ready to fight."
"Can we practice it once or twice here?"
He looked at her for several beats, then slowly shook his head. "Negative. There's a certain risk factor such as a broken arm or leg, maybe a bad landing and a broken back. We can take the risk on the actual hot drop. No way I'm risking you on a low-level training jump."
She gave a quick sigh, and nodded. "Good. I wasn't looking forward to it. I've got bruises over half my body now from those other parachute jumps. Those straps really jerk you around when the chute opens."
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